The Magic 8 Ball

“Juneleh, I tell you everything…well most of the time I do. Sometimes I hold my tongue and wait.”

Johnny watched her eyes narrow and lips purse, “baby if you really want to pucker your lips you ought to come closer and I’ll kiss you. This air kiss thing doesn’t do much for me.”

June rolled her eyes at him, started to say something and then stopped.

“Baby, finish what you were about to say.”

“Johnny, you know I tell you everything…well most of the time I do.”

Johnny snorted.

“I am not going to fight with you and I am not going to play this game because the end result is when you start to feel unimportant and ignored you will get angry and try to pick a fight with me.”

“You make me sound stupid, petty and ridiculous. If you don’t want a fight then tell me what you were about to say and don’t play games with me. You stress me out when you do this.”

“June, I pay much closer attention to you than you realize. I have noticed that we really don’t fight much. It is usually just when we are apart for extended periods of time and it is only about silly things. As soon as we see each other all that stuff flies out the window and we forget it happened.

If I had my way any time we had a disagreement I’d just hug you and talk it out but we can’t always do that. So here we are in that weird in between place neither one of us likes. My bet is that you are worried about what is going to happen when I leave and I get that. I’ll be gone for a while and my guess is that you’ll find a way to create some distance between us.”

“Why would you possibly say that? I am not a flake.”

“No, you are not a flake you are reliable. But you’ll protect yourself. You’ll worry about whether I am going to come back and at some point you’ll decide it is too hard so you’ll come up with a reason to push me away and I’ll have to decide whether to try to convince you to keep holding my hand or not.”

“Does that mean you would just give up on us? How could you just walk away from me, especially after everything?”

“Sweetheart, I can’t imagine just walking away from you. Hell the Magic 8 ball said you would be mine forever and you said I would be yours forever but experience has taught me that your crazy, hysterical, illogical and irrational.”

“I am not laughing. I want to know what your plan is. I want dates. I want to know when you are coming back. Give me a reason to be confident here.”

“June, I can’t give you an exact date today but if you give me some time to get settled I can come up with a time frame. Besides I need you to look at your schedule and tell me what is good for you too.

Baby, you are my best friend and maybe one day we’ll wake up and look around our bedroom and be amazed by how lucky we are. I love you and am confident.”

June sighed deeply.

“How can you be so certain?”

“I know things.”

“I hate when you say that, I like details.”

“I know you do and I am not playing games here. I am telling you that if you look at everything that we have been through you could argue there is no reason for us to be here together and you could just as easily argue this is exactly why we should believe our time is coming.”

“Can’t you ask that Magic 8 Ball for some details, like when it is going t.o happen?”

“I did. When I asked if we would end up together it said ‘It is certain.’ And when I asked if it would be while we were young enough to enjoy life it said ‘You may rely on it.’

That was enough for me, at least for now. Beyond that all I can do is tell you I love you and ask you to keep holding my hand and we’ll figure it out together just like we always do. Because that is what we do, we figure things out. Besides that astrology thing said that the smart Virgo listens to her Taurus, so…”